When the present Prayer Book was issued on St. Bartholomew’s day, in 1662, and an “unfeigned assent and consent” to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and to other antichristian doctrines, was demanded, no less than two thousand clergymen refused their signatures. They could not, with a good conscience, declare “that the Book of Common Prayer containeth in it nothing contrary to the word of God;” and therefore they retired from the church in which they had ministered, and submitted to much poverty and persecution. While we desire to value whatever is scriptural in that church, and while we would love all who love Christ, yet, with our convictions of the unscriptural character of this doctrine, and of other doctrines taught in its liturgy, conformity would be a sin, a wilful and presumptuous sin, for which we should have to answer in the great and terrible day of the Lord. III. Having thus stated the doctrine of infant baptism as it is taught in the Scriptures, and having shown you what is objectionable in the baptismal service of the Church of England, I desire now to connect this latter part of the discourse more immediately with the former; and therefore keeping in view the baptism of the prince, I shall address you as subjects, as parents, and as children. _As subjects of the British throne_, the feelings with which you hailed the accession of our beloved Queen Victoria are, I am persuaded, still fresh and joyous in your hearts. Her youth; her education; her deceased father, and her still living and honoured mother; her known attachment to civil and religious liberty, inherited from her royal ancestors of the House of Brunswick; and her virtuous character; all conspired to brighten and to bless the day of her accession, and to fill our hearts with joy and praise. Nor did we fail, as members of the Church of Christ, to make her the subject of special, fervent, and united prayer. And it is a most important and impressive fact, that probably no sovereign, either in Britain or in any other nation under heaven, ever ascended a throne accompanied by more earnest and affectionate supplications than Queen Victoria did. May all those prayers be answered, in the divine bestowment of a long and prosperous reign, followed by a holy and a happy eternity! Nor did the royal marriage tend to lessen either our joy or hope. It enhanced them both. Prince Albert is favourably known to the lovers of protestantism and of piety in this country, as the branch of an illustrious family, which at the era of the Reformation, protected and patronized the immortal Luther, when he was kindling in Germany that sacred flame which rapidly spread through this county, and consumed many of the corruptions and abominations of popery. And now, the royal pair having become parents the second time—the parents of a prince, and heir apparent to the British throne, we earnestly pray that his baptism may be